Articles

When Dr. Andreé Kühnhardt wanted to further his surgical learning, his mentors at the suburban Madrid hospital in Spain where he practices recommended flying to Fresno to study under bariatric surgeon Kelvin Higa at Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital.

Community Regional Medical Center's sonography school has joined the only other program in the United States with accreditation to teach all four learning concentrations – General Sonography, Adult Cardiac Echo, Pediatric Cardiac Echo and Vascular Sonography. Even programs teaching ultrasound techniques at the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins do not have pediatric cardiac echo approval from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs.

When her husband of 10 years was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, photographer Wendy Denton said her brain went into hibernation for a bit. Then her mind began spitting out images of how to unpack a life and live it fully in the last days they had left together.

The GetWell Network turns the television in patients’ rooms throughout Community Medical Centers' three hospitals into an entertainment and education portal where they can watch video education courses and view discharge instructions tailored just for them – in English or Spanish. Such technology shows patients and their families exactly what improvements they must achieve to be discharged and how to make sure healing continues at home, with videos on how to care for stitches and take their follow-up medication.

Community Medical Centers is a hub for the expanded use and interconnectivity of electronic medical records in the Central San Joaquin Valley.

When more than 240,000 Fresno-area residents visit their primary care and specialty physicians, their electronic health records are available through a Community clinical information system called Epic. The same Epic electronic records also track the 650,000 visits made annually by patients to Community’s hospitals, clinics and imaging centers.